#geopolitics

China's Ministry of Commerce is considering restricting overseas access to its most advanced AI models, including unreleased ones, and has held meetings with Alibaba, ByteDance, and Zhipu. This policy could reshape global AI competition by limiting technology transfer and potentially triggering reciprocal measures from other nations. The scope of restrictions is still under discussion and may only apply to future models; it remains uncertain whether the rules will be finalized.

According to a Financial Times report, OpenAI and Google have been providing advanced AI services to Singapore-based subsidiaries of Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, whose parent companies are on the Pentagon's 1260H list of Chinese military companies. These transactions are currently legal under US export controls but have renewed calls for stricter regulations. This report exposes potential loopholes in US export controls on AI technology, as subsidiaries abroad may not be covered. It raises significant compliance questions for major AI providers and could accelerate the push for broader AI export restrictions. OpenAI recently suspended API access to an Alibaba affiliate after detecting model distillation and reported the incident to the US government. In contrast, Anthropic has a stricter policy that prohibits all Chinese entities and their overseas subsidiaries from accessing its frontier AI models.